Perditius
by Mary West
Summary: Fifty years ago, during the Great Battle of Hogwarts, the body of Severus Snape went missing. It's time for the children to hear the story of what really happened. Written for the SSHG-Giftfest 2015 All recognizable characters belong to JK Rowling and associates. No copyright infringement intended. Just a small tribute to her great genius.
1. Chapter 1

Aunty Rose settled in the best chair, pulled her shawl around her, and took up her cup of tea. The space in front of her started off empty, but by the time she had finished her cup, all the next generation were there, sitting quietly on the rug and looking up at her with wide, eager eyes. They'd done this often enough over the years and they knew the rules – when Aunty was telling the stories, they had to treat her with respect, or she would leave and not finish. And a story without an end is worse than a story never started.

She ran her eyes over the gaggle of children – none of them hers. She and Scorpius had had no children of their own, but they looked after their nieces and nephews enough that they were all really part of the same big family. With a sigh of resignation, she put down her teacup.

"Well?"

Perce, the eldest boy and proud of his seven years, had obviously decided he was the spokesperson. His older cousin Lily Elizabeth had taken the only other seat by virtue of being ten, but she let Perce speak for all of them.

"Aunty Rose, we're old enough now."

"Hmmm. Old enough for what?"

"Old enough for the story of the Lost Prince."

"And why do you say that?"

"Because, Aunty, I'm seven, and Freddie and Harry are six, and even little Angie is five, and you said that when Angie was old enough you'd tell us all together so as you didn't have to tell it five times over."

"Then let's see. Angie? It can be a little bit scary. Do you think you can cope?"

"I'm a big girl now!" Angie, with her arms around her tattered ferret doll, was sitting up very straight and attempting to look as grown-up as a five year old can. "And Mum said that while you were looking after us, you'd tell us the story."

"Oh did she now? I'll be having words with that Lily Luna. But you're right. I'll tell you the story, but it's much too long for the whole thing on one night."

There was a chorus of _"awwwww"_ , which shushed as soon as Aunty held up her hand. "Did I say that I wouldn't tell it? You're staying for three nights, so I'll tell it in three separate parts. After all, that's how it breaks anyway."

There was a fast but quickly hushed "Yay!", then the children crept closer to hear

* * *

 **Conscientia**

Many years ago, after the great battle when the evil wizard Voldemort was finally defeated, the body of the bravest man of all disappeared. He had been slain on the orders of Lord Voldemort, but when the survivors went to retrieve his body, it was gone. For fifty years it was a mystery. Some said it had been eaten by the snake…

 _"Ewwwww," came in chorus from the children._

And some said he hadn't died after all, but had done his last great trick and just got up and walked away, leaving only his memories and a huge puddle of blood.

But the truth was different. He had arranged with the elves that, if he was badly injured, they would take his body to a secret place deep in the Castle. There, he would make use of the potions and healing tools he had secreted against just such an occurrence. What he didn't know was that the room, which was part of the Room of Requirement's magic, had been destroyed just before he was attacked. The elves took him instead to a hidden chamber deep in the Elvish part of the Castle. There, they used their knowledge of time and the power of the Time Turner from the Headmaster's desk, and the abilities they had to hold the decay of food in the kitchens. They cast a spell of holding over his body, according to his orders, to lock it in stasis for two score and ten years. Then, they said, a great and powerful witch would come and release the stasis, mend the wounds, destroy the poison and restore Severus to life.

And so he lay, deep in the Castle, for fifty long, cold, dark years until one of the Heroes of the Great Battle became the next Headmistress of Hogwarts. Hermione Weasley …

 _"Grandma!" yelled Harry._

That's right – your grandmother. My mother. After Father died, she decided to go back to Hogwarts, and take over from Headmaster Longbottom. But shhh or I won't finish the story.

"Sorry, Aunty."

Hermione set herself up in the office, and it did not take long for the brightest and cleverest witch of her time to realise that there was something odd. Every past Head had had a portrait made, and when they died, the portrait magically came alive. It was something the Castle did.

Except for one.

 _She paused. Every face was turned towards her, every breath held waiting for the answer._

Severus Snape's portrait hung on the wall, and was as still and as lifeless as a Muggle picture. She had known about this for years, but had never worked out the secret. She had asked every wizard she knew, from Harry to Ollivander to Lucius Malfoy…

 _"That's Uncle Scorpius's grandpa!"_

"Shhhh, Angie, or she won't tell the rest."

"Sorry."

A pause, then Aunty started up again.

She'd asked the centaurs and the goblins. But, standing in the Head's office, she realised there was one group who had never answered her questions. The House Elves.

Hermione clapped her hands and summoned the entire contingent. They listened to her questions, and the eldest and wisest of the Elves, Mimsy, came forward and bowed, and told her that the reason they hadn't answered her was that they had been bound to silence until this day. Mimsy held out his hands, and she took them, and the Elves led her down corridors and tunnels and passages and chambers until, deep in the hidden places of Hogwarts, they came to the body of Severus Snape.

Her magic was great, and she recognised the power that held him in that place between life and death until someone would release him and heal him. But his body was sunken, dried and shrivelled, white as death and still as the grave. He lay on a bed, clad only in a thin robe, so thin that Hermione could see the blotches on his skin, and the scars where wounds of long ago had healed. Only the light around his body from the spell keeping him in stasis told her that he was not actually dead.

"What do I need to do?" she asked.

"He has lost much, and needs to find it again," said Mimsy. "He has lost his mind. He has lost his soul. And most of all, he has lost his heart. If these could be found, then Severus might be made whole, and could be released."

"Then we shall find them, and release him," Hermione said. "Have him brought to the Infirmary, and I shall seek the help of the Wizarding World."

She sent word to the wisest and boldest wizards and witches she knew. The news travelled throughout the kingdom, and there was much quiet rejoicing, yet a great sadness that the Hero lay helpless.

For three whole days, Hermione thought and puzzled through the problem. Then Luna Lovegood came to her.

"What was Severus's great knowledge?" Luna asked.

"His potions," replied Hermione.

"Then find the essence of his potions, and you will have found his mind."

Hermione realised that this was true. What's more, she knew where the essence of the potions was. She went down to the Potions Classroom, where there was a permanent display of relics of Severus. There, in the middle of the table, was the Advanced Potions Book of the Half Blood Prince. She brought it back to where Severus lay, and stood beside him.

"I have your book, Severus. The one belonging to the Half Blood Prince." She laid it on his chest.

For a while, nothing happened. Then, slowly, oh so slowly, so slowly that you could have sighed and cried a dozen times over, a thin pink flush started from his chest and spread through his entire body. From his head to his toes, the skin lost its pinched look, and the pallor of death became the shade of life

* * *

"And that's enough for the first night. Now – off and clean your teeth and get ready for bed." Aunty waved her hands at the children, and they stood and started towards the bathroom. Lily, however, caught a look in her Aunt's eye, and waited until the younger children had left.

"What is it, Aunty?"

"It's the story. I'm telling all of you the fairy story, but it's not the truth. And I need someone to hear the truth."

"I can hear it, Aunty."

"Can you? It's dark, and bitter. There's not the ending you expect."

"I'm old enough."

"Then sit, and hear the rest of this part. Someone's got to know it, to pass it on when I'm gone."

"So tell me, Aunty. I won't forget it."

* * *

 **Veritas durabit**

Just laying the book on his chest wasn't enough, the elves told her. She had to read it to him. So Hermione pulled up a chair, and started to read out aloud. She read from start to finish, from the introduction to the index, and included all the notes and the annotations that a young lad had put into that book as a part of becoming the best Potions wizard ever. Then she tucked the book under his arm, lying on the bed. And as she did, she noticed that his hand was no longer as cold as the grave and as white as death.

What she didn't know was that as she was reading those words, they had penetrated his mind and started it working again. Slowly, her voice registered in his brain. Slowly, he could make out individual words, and then sentences – because he'd known those words and those sentences for years. As he listened, he tried to work out who was the witch who was reading to him, but he couldn't quite make it out. Her voice was melodious, sweet, like balm on his bitter thoughts.

As the book came to its end, he made a wish.

"I wish she would keep talking. Just for a while."

And she did.

She took his hand and held it, and talked as if he could hear her.

"Severus, come back. Please. Come back to us. It's been fifty years. We know about you and Lily, and about you and Dumbledore. You're the bravest wizard ever. I wish you could hear me."

And she did not know that he did.

* * *

"That's the Lily that I'm named after, isn't it, Aunty?"

"It is, my dear. When I tell the story tomorrow night, will you stay and hear the truth?"

"Of course. Goodnight, Aunty." Lily went to bed, while Aunty Rose sat back on her chair and recollected the next part of the story.


	2. Chapter 2

The next night, all the children were washed, in their pyjamas, and sitting waiting for the next part of the story before Rose had even got her evening cup of tea. She walked over to her chair, settled down into it, and took a long sip before she looked over the rims of her glasses at her audience. The three youngest were snuggled close to each other with a blanket over them, and Perce was just behind them, leaning against the chair where Lily sat. Every child waited in silence until Rose put down her cup and leaned forward.

"Do you remember what Hermione found last night?"

"His mind!"

"Severus's mind!"

"And his body! It was stuck in the Castle, but Gran found it!"

"That's right," said Rose. "It took her three days, but she found the key to bring back his mind. Yet that was only a part of the solution. So, now I can tell you what happened after that, and what Hermione, my mother, found next. Are we ready?"

"Yes!"

"Does anyone remember what Mimsy the House Elf said they had to find next?"

There was silence from the floor, but at the back, on the chair, Lily smiled and waited until Rose nodded at her.

"His soul, Aunty. Severus had lost his soul."

"Indeed he had, my child. And a soul is hard to lose, and harder still to find. So let me tell you…"

* * *

 **Spiritus**

Mimsy had said that Severus's soul needed to be returned, but Hermione didn't know where it was or how to find it. She gathered together the brightest and the best students in Hogwarts, and together they read every book in the Library – those that hadn't been opened in a hundred years, those that required feeding before they would open, and even the books that tried to drag you into them as you read them. She talked with Luna again, but this time Luna could not help her.

And as they searched, Hermione kept vigil beside Severus. Every morning and every night, she sat beside him, holding his hand and telling him about the things they had discovered along the way, for no knowledge is wasted. She told him how they now knew how to restore the Room of Requirement, how to create a new wing on the Castle as the numbers of students grew, and even how to charm the kitchens into expanding the food choices to include dishes from around the world.

Then Hermione thought of Severus's students. He had been head of Slytherin House for many years before he became Headmaster, and a member of Slytherin before that. So she tracked down as many of his former classmates and students as she could find. During the term, she spent every Saturday travelling around Britain, talking to Marcus Flint in Cornwall and Pansy Parkinson who was living with Malcolm Baddock. She ran the gamut from Avery to Zabini and even tracked down Millicent Bullstrode who was running a cat shelter in Dublin.

From each of them, she heard the same thing.

That Severus Snape had been, for the students of his House, their carer.

Their protector.

And most of all, their guardian.

How he had quietly made sure that the House Elves would slip good-quality second-hand clothing into the wardrobes of those from poor backgrounds like himself.

How he had ensured that those who had broken or unhappy homes had friends to take them in the holidays, and somewhere to spend Christmas.

And how those whose parents did not care how they were doing could always rely on Severus to sit and listen to them.

Finally, after three long months, she arrived at Malfoy Manor. With great trepidation, she approached the front door. This place held only nightmares and pain for Hermione, but such was her esteem for Severus Snape that she took a deep breath, and entered the Manor to talk with Lucius, Narcissa and Draco Malfoy.

The two elderly Malfoys were tired, worn, and willing to talk. They told of how they had befriended the lost young boy when he first arrived at Hogwarts, and taught him to hold his head up high. How he had found his true place in Slytherin, despite his bloodlines.

And Draco told of how Severus had cared for the lost, the homesick and the friendless students.

"He made it our home," said Draco. "Even if we knew we had our own homes, it was a safe place for us."

And every morning, and every evening, she would go and talk to Severus as he lay in the infirmary. She told him of what his former classmates had said of him, and what his former students had said. How even the most bitter and disappointed, those who had cursed him for betraying Lord Voldemort's cause, still saw the care and the dedication with which Severus had performed his role as Head of Slytherin.

Then, one night, Lucius came to see Severus with his own eyes. The white-haired wizard walked slowly, and the cane was more than just for show now, but he walked up to the bed where Severus lay, and looked at his old friend. Finally, he turned to Hermione, and said:

"What is it he needs, to bring him back to us?"

"His soul is lost and I cannot find it." Hermione stood beside Lucius, and held Severus's hand. "If only he could tell us … but I cannot hear him."

"You already have." Lucius turned Hermione to face him, and lifted her chin with one gloved hand. "You have heard his compassion and his care. What was it that he went back to, taught in, lived in, for so many years?"

"Oh of course!" Hermione clapped her hands and called Mimsy and the House Elves to her. Together they took Severus from the Infirmary down to the Slytherin Dormitory, in the Dungeons, and to the Head of Slytherin's rooms where Severus had spent so long and given so much of his life.

Once they were there, the light around Severus began to change. As if a vine came alive from the walls themselves, a green tendril of light wound out and around Severus, and seemed to infuse him slowly. For a long while, nothing more happened. Then, a very slight rise of his chest indicated that, for the first time in fifty years, Severus Snape was breathing.

And so his soul, the second part of him, was found.

* * *

"And now it's bedtime for little wizards and witches. Up. Off you go." Rose gestured as the children groaned in unison, then stood up and headed down the corridor. All except for Lily, who knew now to wait. Once the sound of running feet had disappeared towards the bathroom, she looked up at her aunt, who was surprised to see her niece's eyes filled with tears.

"Why, Lily! Aren't you pleased that Severus is coming to life?"

"But he's spent so long by himself. Aunty– what _really_ happened?"

Rose smiled to herself, and settled back into the chair.

* * *

 **Verum nasciturum**

Every morning, and every night, Severus waited impatiently for the sounds of Hermione's voice. It had taken him a week to work out who was talking to him, and by then he didn't care that it was that bossy know-it-all. Her voice was beautiful to him, the sound that had pulled him from his cold, dark pit. By the end of the first month, he realised he missed her when she wasn't there.

By the end of the second month, he realised that he cared about whether she was tired, or sad, or if she had had a hard journey seeking out the way to release him.

And by the end of the third month, he knew that he cared for her. Wished he could talk with her. Longed to squeeze her hand back. And hoped against all odds that she would find the pieces she was looking for.

And she, in the darkness of the night and the stillness of the morning, told him more than she had found. She told him of the high place he held in so many hearts, even those who had reviled him for his choices during the War. She told him how the Houses were now all together, mixed, and each student chose for themselves where they wanted to be. And she told him how his work had shown that being a member of Slytherin did not automatically mean "evil", and that ambition could be positive.

But she also told him about herself. How lonely she had been as a child, before she knew why she was so different. How miserable she had been when she first came to Hogwarts, until Ron and Harry had become her friends. And how sad she had been when Ron died some years before, until she had decided to accept the offer of the Board of Governors and had returned to the School.

Once he was moved back to his old chambers, she spent even longer sitting beside him, holding his hand and tracing around and over and under it with her fingers. And it seemed to her that everywhere she traced, the skin plumped up just a little, softened under her touch. The softness spread slowly over his body until it was as if he was just lying there asleep instead of lying there dead.

All the time, he listened to her every word.

Then one night, she broke down and started crying.

"Severus, I wish you could come back. If only… if only you could tell me if I'm doing the right thing. I had no idea who you really were, and now, I just want to tell you… tell you…"

But she never finished the sentence. Instead, she put his hand down gently across his chest, brushed the lock of his hair that always seemed to fall across his face so that it wouldn't irritate his eyes, and left to go on with her nightly duties. And as she left and turned out the light, she missed the single tear that slid from underneath his eyelid to roll down his cheek and onto the bed.

* * *

"And now, bedtime, my eldest niece."

"Yes, Aunty."

"But Lily?"

Lily, who had reached the door, turned back, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "Yes?"

"Tomorrow night, don't get changed into pyjamas. Stay dressed."

"All right." And the young girl walked out and closed the door behind her.


	3. Chapter 3

On the third night, it seemed as if the children could not be ready soon enough. They bolted their meals, even cleared the table without being asked to, and were set and ready in their seats before Rose headed for the kitchen to make her cup of tea. Even there, she had been forestalled – Lily came out of the kitchen with Rose's tea already made, the cup steaming and a biscuit tucked beside it. Rose sniffed the tea cautiously, but apart from having endured a slightly heavy hand with the sugar, it was perfectly all right. Rose also noticed that Lily had hidden her jeans and shoes by wearing her dressing gown. The old woman nodded in approval at the simple deception, and Lily grinned back.

"Now," said Rose, "Where were we up to? Had I told you about his mind?"

"Yes, Aunty." The voices were a chorus, almost in unison.

"And did I tell you about his soul?"

"Yes, Aunty!" This a little louder and more eager.

"Then what can possibly be left?"

"His heart! His heart!" From all the waiting children, the cry echoed from one side of the room to the other, as their eyes sparkled with hope and encouragement.

"Then shhh, and I'll tell you what happened to his heart." Rose drank her tea, sat back, and began.

* * *

 **Animus**

Hermione knew that Severus had given his heart to Lily Evans, Harry's mother, many years ago. She knew that it was that giving which had lent him the strength and the determination to protect Harry, no matter what, through all the dark years when Lord Voldemort was trying to take over the Wizarding world. Thanks to Harry's collection of Severus's memories, the story of that love was common knowledge.

It is also common knowledge that once a heart is given, then it can never be regained, nor can it heal, and nor can it start anew. For centuries the singers have sung of this, the storytellers have told of this, and the poets have taken the hearts of young girls and left them feeling as if the world is ending.

And they're wrong.

Hermione looked for anyone who could remember Severus and Lily. For the first year, she looked around Hogwarts. Lily Potter of course was long gone, as was James Potter, and Harry only had tiny flashes of knowledge about them. Some of the teachers at school gave her everything they knew, but it was mainly about the young Muggle-born lass who had blossomed at a school that understood her, and the dark half-blood Slytherin who had found his feet in Potions and created his own world. Very few of them had even noticed the final break between the two, let alone any special friendship beforehand. To be honest, most were also rather embarrassed at having missed the teasing and bullying by the Marauders which had made such a misery of Severus's life at school.

For another year, she questioned again those Slytherins who had been at school in the 1970s, as well as the other students who might have noticed something. She talked with Lorcan d'Eath who had started just as Severus and Lily had finished, and even tracked down the aging Tilden Toots who had finished in the pair's first year. From them, she got the sort of information you might expect from those who were students in different classes. But she had to try.

Then, near the end of the third year of searching, she screwed up her courage and travelled on a fine spring afternoon to the small country village of Duckbush. There, in a retirement home nested among the plum blossoms and near the village pond, she sat beside a wheelchair where a bright-eyed, bitter old lady told her all.

Hermione listened as Petunia told how Lily had been Severus's friend. That Lily had been the best thing that had ever happened to him, but that Lily had meant much more to Severus than Severus meant to Lily. And that, on the night Lily had died, Petunia thought she had heard a cry of anguish so full of pain and loss that she felt her own heart break. She'd hoped it had been a bad dream, until Harry had arrived on her doorstep in a basket. But she knew that Lily's heart had been given to James, and also to her only child, Harry. Which is why, of course, Severus had helped to protect and save Harry, right until the end.

So Hermione went back to the space where Severus lay, deep in the Slytherin living quarters under the lake, in his old bedroom. She sat beside his motionless body and took his hand, barely registering that, in the cool of the room, it was warm and soft. For a while, she just sat there, the tears starting to gather in her eyes. Then she spoke.

"Severus, I don't know if you know this already. I think you do. I have to say it out aloud, though."

She took a deep breath, and tried to steady her voice, which had gained a waver and was threatening to dissolve into tears. A second breath helped, then she continued. "Lily cared for you, but only as a friend. She did love you, but just as a close companion. Her heart – she did love James very much, and of course she loved Harry. You may have given her your heart, but she never gave her yours."

Her tears were falling freely now, down her cheeks and then onto hers and Severus's hands. Inside her, all she could think was that she had lost her last chance to bring him back to life. But she herself had come to love him so very much, after finding out all the kind and caring and considerate and brave things he had done. She'd fallen in love with him, and his brilliant and insightful mind. She'd fallen in love with the hurt and lonely boy who had left Spinner's End while not expecting anything good at Hogwarts. And she loved the man who had sacrificed much of his life to protect the school, the staff, the students and most of all her best friend.

Hermione let go of Severus's hand, and laid her head down on the bed beside him. Her heart broke, and she sobbed with such deep sadness that the very lights in the Castle itself dimmed a little as an echo.

And as she wept, she failed to notice the hand that crept up beside her head, until it came to rest on her hair and started to stroke it. As she wept, she did not notice that Severus's eyes had opened, and he was looking at her as if she was the most beautiful, the most lovely thing in his life.

But when the hand touched her, she stilled, and her eyes flew open and she sat up slowly. As she did, his hand cupped her cheek, and he looked deep into her eyes, past the weeping and the fear and the years that had gone past.

Slowly, oh so slowly, she leaned down to him and they kissed.

* * *

Aunty stopped, and picked up her tea. There was not a movement from the children, until Angie piped up and said "And did they live happily ever after?"

"They did," said Aunty. "She had given him her heart, and his had mended as a result. So your grandmother did the bravest and best thing she'd ever done. And now it's bedtime.

For once, the children didn't protest or whine. Perce and Harry had been crying along with the story, and Rose could not see Lily's eyes. Her eldest niece had her head down and was staring into her folded hands in her lap. Rose wisely left her alone while shepherding the other children down the hallway. Tonight, Uncle Hugo was home, and would mind the children. She and Lily Elizabeth had an important job to do.

"Are you all right, Lily Elizabeth?"

"I don't know." The girl's tears ran down her cheeks as she put on her coat and followed her aunt to the _Apparation_ spot outside the house. "But is that why Grandma disappeared?"

"You can remember her?"

"It was only two years ago. The boys are too young, and Angie was still a baby, really. But I remember Gran."

Rose gathered her niece up in her arms, and the world swooped and dipped and suddenly they were in Hogsmeade, many many miles to the north of Rose's home. "What _do_ you remember, Lily?"

"I remember that Gran was always a bit sad, even when she was playing with Angie. I remember she was very clever. But she looked as if she was missing something important, like she'd lost something and was still looking for it."

"And now you know why." Rose pulled her own coat around her, and they started on the walk to Hogwarts.

"When we went to talk to Petunia, she was still angry at Harry."

"Why?"

"Because, in her eyes, it was his fault that she'd lost her sister. But she desperately wanted to talk about Lily, so she did."

* * *

"My sister found it so easy to make friends," said Petunia Dursley. "She could talk with anyone, and find something they wanted to talk about. She could charm the stones off the hearth, is the saying. And she could have been anyone she wanted to – but she was friends with that horrid dark boy."

Petunia Dursley was ninety years old, but still as sharp and observant as ever. Her hair was permed and set to within an inch of its life, and her eyes missed nothing, nor had they all those years ago.

"It was her fault, you see." She spoke with an edge to her voice, long-ago envy creeping in even now. "Mother wouldn't let us play with the local children. Said they weren't good enough for us. But there was no-one else in the area that she would let us be friends with, so there was only ever her and me. We were best friends.

"Until he came along."

She sipped on the ginger ale Hermione had brought her, then sighed and hung her head. "I was so lonely. Lily could do all those magic tricks, and she'd do them for me, but once that slum boy showed up, she was never around any more. Always off down near the river, playing and talking. She'd realised he was lonely, and she responded to it as always, off to help make his life that little bit better. For her, it was a chance to talk with someone who understood why it was she could make the buttercups dance and spin when there was no wind, or ask a bird to sing and it would sing for hours. But she didn't realise how much it meant to him – and how much he took from me.

"Because he didn't have anyone else – so he kept her for himself. Talked her into meeting him at all hours, never sharing. Never letting me come along either, for all that I was her sister. Magic only.

"I won a scholarship to the local grammar school, and you'd think that would make Mother proud of me. No. It was the least I could do, she said. She'd never have been able to pay for it, so she expected me to win the scholarship and to keep the work up. So I went, and did so well.

"Then Lily had a visit from an owl and you'd have thought she'd been accepted into Oxford, the way Mother went on about it. Father was quite disappointed he couldn't tell anyone about it without them laughing. But it made both of them happy to have such a _brussen_ daughter in the family. Barely a look to me, and me almost up to my O levels." As she talked, more of the old North Country speech slipped in, and her face softened a little.

"When I finished, and decided I'd had enough, I took an exam for a Secretarial School in London, and went down that week. Dad was gone by then, and Mother hadn't got over losing him. Heart attack. Too many chip butties, but you'd never hear the end of it if you suggested that to her.

"Passed the course in a year, job in a top company the next, met and married Vernon the year after. Mother made it to the wedding, but died while we were honeymooning in Majorca. And then we bought the house, and I had to give up my job because Dudley was on the way."

Hermione leaned over and took the old woman's hand. "Tell me about Lily. When was the last time you saw her?"

"The last time I saw my sister was at her wedding. We'd met James before. He seemed nice enough, but they were so young. And it was obvious they loved each other very much. But that's how I knew. She'd never loved Severus the way she loved James." Petunia was looking off across the lawn now, the figures of Lily and her groom dancing in front of her as clear as they had been on the day of the wedding. "When they looked into each other's eyes, it was as if there were cords of red and gold winding about them, binding them closely together. It made me realise what I had given up to marry Vernon."

Petunia's eyes misted over, and lost their hard and forbidding look. "Vernon was always very kind to me. He wanted to buy a holiday home in Majorca, to please me. He could be harsh, but he was always good to Dudley. But he never understood Lily, or Harry. And I don't think he ever really loved me. He thought he did. But he loved the idea of having a wife, a home, a family. That's not the same. Lily and James didn't have anything material, yet they had everything."

At that, they reached the front courtyard of Hogwarts. Rose guided her up to the front door, and knocked gently. Uncle Scorpius stood there, and ushered them into the front hall, and Rose started the last part of the true story.

* * *

 **Verum effici non morietur**

Severus had had fifty long years to think over his lost love, for although he had released his memories for Hermione and Harry and Ron when Nagini tried to kill him, they were not gone from him – merely copied. He had spent many long hours replaying his youth, when a young Lily Evans had played with him in the grass near the river. As they grew up, they had grown closer, but the choices and the Houses and the affiliations and cliques of Hogwarts had been too much to resist for a lad who had never really belonged. Finally, Severus acknowledged that it had been his own actions and choices that had driven Lily away from him.

He had realised, even before Hermione came to tell him, that as much as Lily had loved him as her friend, she had never loved him as he had loved her. Slow as his mind had worked under the enchantment, it had had fifty long years to work through the basics, and three years, three months and three days to finalise the details.

More than that: for the last one thousand, one hundred and ninety days, he had had the voice of Hermione to bring him back to life. Her words had wrapped around his mind. Her stories had infiltrated his soul.

And her love had rekindled his heart.

When she lay down her head beside him, and her tears ran over their hands, he could feel the life returning to his body. So long in stasis had rendered him weak and feeble, but with all his strength he raised his hand and touched her head.

What neither of them noticed, as they kissed, is that the light from the lamps around them had risen in long, tangling beams. Or maybe it was the life from the Castle. Or the light from their hearts. But as they kissed, the ribbons of light wound from Severus to Hermione and back again, silver and green, red and gold, weaving a magical net around both of them.

Hermione was not old by wizarding standards, but the injuries from the war had never healed properly. The strain of the days and weeks and months of searching had drained her even further. Severus's body had spent the time resting and recovering, but also finally combatting and clearing out the poison from Nagini. All his strength and energy were gone, used in that last action of raising his hand to hold Hermione and kiss her. They kissed, he wrapped his arms around her, she sank towards him, and their hearts joined and then faltered. The shroud-like strands of light surrounded them, enfolded them and clasped them together, never to let go.

* * *

"Never, Aunty?"

Rose did not reply. They had reached a door at the side of the Slytherin dormitory. Scorpius produced a key and unlocked it, and the three of them walked in.

There, in front of them, lay Severus and Hermione. Laid on a padded bier, he held her in his arms, their faces turned towards each other as if all they had to do was open their eyes and they would be gazing into the other's face for eternity. Braids of light lay over them like a net, holding and protecting them from the ravages of time.

"Are they dead?"

"No. And yet, they're not alive. Not in this time or place. I was here when it happened. The House Elves and I lay them together, and wove a new stasis spell around them, but the Castle has done something extra to hold them safe."

"And how do we get them out?"

Rose sat on a nearby chair, holding her niece's hand and looking towards her mother. "I don't know. That's why you're here. That's why I had to tell you the story. I've looked, and I will keep on looking. But in case I don't find out, it's your job to tell the others when they're old enough. Tell them the story, then tell them the truth. And when they're at Hogwarts, bring them here and show them."

"Can I touch them?"

"You can't. I've tried."

Nevertheless, Lily Elizabeth walked up to the platform. As she put her hand over the two, she felt the shielding power of the aura, repelling her hand like a similar-poled magnet. She looked down on the pair, their faces serene despite the stillness.

Scorpius put his arms around his wife and kissed the top of her head. Then, together, the living walked out and left the sleepers to dream.

 _End notes:_ _  
Latin Headings:  
Perditius = The Lost One  
Conscientia = Consciousness, mind.  
Veritas durabit = The truth will endure.  
Spiritus = Soul/spirit  
Verum nasciturum = The truth will come out  
Animus = The Seat of Affection and Love  
Verum effici non morietur = The truth cannot die_

Brussen – North Country for "Clever"


End file.
